Riverside, Lincoln students excited to participate in new entrepreneurship program

Patrick O'Shea @NewsAddict2

Thursday

May 17, 2018 at 5:00 PM

ELLWOOD CITY — Mataya Costello spent her youth thinking she would become a scientist and working toward that goal.

However, the 17-year-old Riverside High School junior said Thursday that things changed for her last year and she began to ask herself what she really wanted to do with her life.

That led her to decide she wanted to bake and eventually open her own bakery, but it also left her unprepared for what to do next, "a blank slate," Costello said.

Then Costello learned about the Riv-Ell Entrepreneurship Program starting next year and saw there was help for her.

Speaking at the kickoff ceremony Thursday morning at an Ellwood City restaurant for the joint Riverside and Lincoln High School entrepreneurship project, Costello told about 30 audience members she was thankful to local schools, businesses and leaders who agreed to support the program.

Hunter Gulish, 17, a Lincoln junior who was another of the 10 students chosen for the inaugural year of the program in 2018-19, said the more she has learned about the program, the more she is looking forward to participating. She said the effort is "turning dreams into reality."

Under the program, participating Riverside and Lincoln seniors will be able to take 16 tuition-free transferrable credit courses at Butler County Community College and the Community College of Beaver County. It will include hands-on field trips to Ellwood City Area Chamber of Commerce businesses taking part in the program.

Kevin McElwain of Good Wheels auto dealership in Ellwood City, one of the business sponsors, said he has never seen the level of collaboration that is occurring with Riv-Ell. "This is the future of education," he said.

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